Laird announces Vietnamization strategy, April 3, 1969

On this day in 1969, Melvin Laird, secretary of defense in the new Nixon administration, announced that responsibility for engaging communist-run North Vietnam and Viet Cong guerrillas in battle would be gradually shifted to South Vietnamese forces as they became more capable of mounting sustained combat operations.

On the same day, the U.S. military headquarters in Saigon reported that combat deaths for the last week of March had pushed the total number of Americans killed during U.S. involvement in Vietnam to more than 58,000 — far surpassing the number of U.S. military fatalities that occurred during the Korean War.

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In making his announcement, Laird, the first member of Congress to occupy the defense post, said the administration would not discuss specific troop withdrawals as long as the North Vietnamese continued to wage offensive operations in South Vietnam. Nevertheless, that June, President Richard Nixon showcased his “Vietnamization” policy by announcing a series of scheduled U.S. troop withdrawals, the first of the war.

The Vietnam War preoccupied Laird as it had his immediate predecessors, Robert McNamara and Clark Clifford, who had served under President Lyndon B. Johnson. Although hostile to demands for an immediate American withdrawal, Laird saw the need to disengage U.S. combat forces.

During 1969, the administration cut authorized U.S. troop strength in Vietnam from 549,500 to 484,000. By May 1972, as Nixon began his quest for a second term, the number stood at 69,000. From January 1969 to May 1972, U.S. combat deaths declined 95 percent from the 1968 peak, and U.S. outlays for the war fell by about two-thirds. Meanwhile, Congress voted to replace U.S. draftees with an all-volunteer force.

By the end of the war, 47,244 Americans had been killed in action in Vietnam. An additional 10,446 died as a result of such non-hostile causes as disease and accidents.